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Discussion:

Early history of the town

Harlech was one of two new towns founded by Edward I in the county of Merioneth, the other being the now 'lost' town of Bere. The commanding site of Harlech overlooks the sweep of Tremadoc Bay, standing opposite and across from Cricieth over on Pen Llyn. It is as if both towns are standing guard over this southern entrance into the high mountains of Snowdonia, both being positioned at roughly the same distance from the broad natural harbour of Traeth Bach and the river valleys that lead up from the sea there to the Welsh heartland of Gwynedd. Unlike Cricieth however, Harlech was not the site of an earlier Welsh stronghold.[236] Edward's men began preparatory work on the castle at Harlech in May 1283, with masons dispatched from Conwy in late June, and others again in mid July.[237] Between August 17 and 20 Edward was at Harlech himself, after which the work was under 'the charge of five squires of the royal household' - John Cosyn, Ebulo de Montibus, John of Gayton, John de Scaccario and Peter of Cornhill, two of whom were Savoyards, hailing from Savoy as did Master James of St George, the king's senior architect in north Wales at this time.[238] Arnold Taylor sees Master James' as 'ultimately responsible for the works at Harlech', while Hugh of Leominster was clerk of works at Harlech, as well as at Caernarfon.[239]

By October 1284 the initial works were advancing and the castle received its first constable, replacing the five royal agents who the king had placed in charge there in summer 1283.[240] Soon after this the town was chartered as a 'free borough', its customs and privileges being modeled on those of Conwy.[241] Harlech's charter was issued on the same date as Bere's and Cricieth's, November 22, all three boroughs also sharing a geographical proximity as well as a common legal foundation.[242] Work on the castle continued after this, through the late 1280s, the details of which are revealed by royal accounts, the sum of the building work by the time of completion in 1290 being around £9500.[243] By 1294, the castle had twenty-seven soldiers, while residing in the adjoining new town were eleven men, twelve women and twenty-one children.[244] Three of the men had Welsh names.[245] The Lay Subsidy roll for Merioneth (of 1292-3) records 12 taxpayers in Harlech.[246] It was a small town, similar in size to Cricieth. Royal accounts of the early 1300s reveal a total of 24½ rented burgages in 1305 and 29¼ in 1312.[247] The market generated five shillings a year in 1304-5.[248] It was held on Saturdays and the town had two fairs during the year, but the site of the town, 'situated on a rock', made things difficult for the inhabitants who in 1329 complained to the king that through their lofty position 'no material advantage accrued to either the town or the castle inhabitants', and hence 'the poor burgesses sought a grant of two additional fairs' to improve their town's fortunes.[249] Worse was to come. Harlech suffered in Glyndwr's attack with 46 houses being burned, and along with destroyed goods of the burgesses the town's loss amounted to £540.[250]

Design and plan of the town

Despite its awkward site, perched high upon a rocky cliff-face, Harlech castle is one of the most perfectly symmetrically formed of Edward's castles in Wales - a 'splendid example of Edwardian military architecture'.[251] It's surrounded by a deep rock-cut ditch, excavated over six months between April and November 1285 at a cost of just over £205.[252] By contrast the plan of the new town is unimpressive. It comprises one main street that winds uphill past the castle gates and then proceeds along a straighter section, with no obvious open area for a market place unless it's represented by a squarish shaped piece of land just outside the entrance to the castle, a likely spot. The change in form in the two halves of High Street is marked by a cross street, where the site of a chapel stood, as is shown by John Speed's plan of 1610.[253] The former medieval layout of Harlech was disrupted by road improvements made during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to lessen gradients for coaches. Facing the single main street is a discernable line of plots, starting at the site of the mill at the north end of the town and continuing southwards. The cross street in contrast does not appear to have had plots laid out along it. There is no documented standard burgage size for Harlech (unlike Cricieth) but field measurements made of plot frontages along the main street revealed a number measuring around 30 feet (1om), and there is some semblance of regularity in the widths of plots shown by the first edition Ordnance Survey plan.[254]

As to the designer of the new town, again like Cricieth there is only uncertainty. The most likely candidates are the royal agents appointed in August 1283 by the king, or perhaps Hugh of Leominster, if it is accepted that clerks of works were responsible for such matters as town planning. Either way, the result is a town plan that has few distinguishing features; nothing of the castle's geometry certainly, and indeed no obvious similarities with any other of the new towns of 1283-4 in north Wales. The impression is that in comparison to the castle little thought was given to the design of the town, as if the town at Harlech was not of that great importance, as indeed turned out to be the case.

The town as it is today

Harlech attracts numerous tourists visiting the well-preserved remains of the castle, who marvel at the distant views of Snowdonia it affords. The medieval routes that led into the town from the north are now quiet byways, for as well as disrupting the layout of medieval Harlech the improved roads carry the town's vehicular traffic. The building façades fronting High Street are largely eighteenth or nineteenth century in date, though some earlier structures are to be found in the quieter northern part of the town, as well as the town's mill.[255] In 2001 the population of Harlech ward stood at 1931 inhabitants, though the ward covers a much greater area than the town itself.

References:

There was however a Welsh maenor at Harlech, 'demolished at the time of the conquest, the houses destroyed, and the mill and lands... arrented to the burgesses' of the new town. Lewis, Mediaeval Boroughs, pp.53-4.

Taylor, Welsh Castles, p.65.

Taylor, Welsh Castles, p.66, the two Savoyards were John Cosyn abd Ebulo de Montibus. See Taylor, 'Some notes on the Savoyards', pp.304-12.

Taylor, Welsh Castles, pp.72, 66; see also Taylor, 'Master James of St George'.

Lewis, Mediaeval Boroughs, p.201. Lewis also noted the role of Harlech as 'a port of some note', with the mayor and bailiffs of the town being ordered by the king in 1324 'to arrest all ships of forty tons and upwards in their port for the king's use' (p.202).

Lewis, Mediaeval Boroughs, pp.201-2.

RCAHMW, Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Wales and Monmouthshire IV - county of Merioneth (HMSO, London, 1910), p.59.